“This phrase by Robert Schuman, founder of Europe, has marked my political commitment from the start. “Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan: it will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity.” It summarizes Schuman’s pragmatic and progressive approach to building European unity, starting with specific projects that could bring nations together and build a basis for cooperation and mutual trust. The analogy with the Bioeconomy is perfect.” To say this – in this exclusive interview with Il Bioeconomista – is Franck Leroy, the President of the Grand Est Region in France, one of the leading bioeconomy regions at European level. He talks about the role of the bioeconomy fur the future of the Region is governing, for France and for the European Union, inviting all our readers to vote for the next election of the EU Parliament (and we fully support his invitation). “It is therefore essential – he states – that public policies are consistent with each other, to foster innovation and the development of the Bioeconomy in our territories, in our countries, and in our continent. And I believe that the regional level is undoubtedly the most relevant level to intersect all these ambitions.”
Interview by Mario Bonaccorso
The Grand Est is one of the leading regions for the bioeconomy at European level. On which pillars is this leadership based?
In January 2016, the territories of Champagne-Ardenne, Lorraine, and Alsace were merged to create the new Grand Est Region. This region has 5.5 million inhabitants spread over 5.7 million hectares. Over 85% of our territory is occupied by agricultural, viticultural, and forest lands.
Thus, we are an agricultural region, the first in France, and we produce biomass, a lot of biomass. That’s why, as early as 2016, we made Bioeconomy a pillar of our economic development and innovation strategy. And of course, we can account on Bioeconomy for change, the french bioeconomy cluster, which was born in Champagne Ardenne territory and remain one of our main regional cluster.
There is a historical tradition in the bioeconomy in your region, which starts from agricultural associations to involve the world of research and industry. What role does a regional administration play to support the growth of the bioeconomy? What is your strategy for the next few years?
It’s one thing to identify economic, geographical, historical realities. However, politics is a bit like cooking: having all the ingredients is not enough to make the dish successful. It takes a recipe, a logic, to assemble them coherently. Therefore, that is the role we have decided to play to develop the Bioeconomy, to move it from a pioneer environment to a reality for all. Thus, in 2018, we held our first Bioeconomy States General in Châlons-en-Champagne, the capital of the second-largest agricultural fair in France. In 2019, we translated the results of these states-general into a regional strategy dedicated to the development of the Bioeconomy around five priorities: Local energy strategies, Territorial biorefineries, Sustainable agriculture for better production, Sustainable food, Biomaterials for building and renovating buildings.
We coordinate a bioeconomy stakeholders committee, which gathers around 50 stakeholders, chaired by the President of Bioeconomy for Change and the Grand Est’s Vice-President for Bioeconomy, Philippe Mangin. This committee aims to challenge us and help deploy our regional bioeconomy strategy.
To steer this strategy, we created a Bioeconomy mission within the regional administration, recruited talent to implement it, in connection with the rich ecosystem of Bioeconomy actors, from researchers to industrialists, through farmers and startups.
And the results are there: the Grand Est Region is the leading region in France for methanization, both in terms of the number of units installed and the volume of green gas injected into the gaz networks, the leading region for the production of sustainable biofuels. We have deployed a sector contract on each of these priorities, to mobilize stakeholders around a common strategy. Similarly, we have structured a network of 8 territorial biorefineries, our champions of the industrialization of Bioeconomy processes.
Buoyed by these successes, we have evolved our regional strategy to combine our agricultural, viticultural, and forestry strategy, for the production of bio-resources, with our bioeconomy strategy for the food and non-food valorization of these bio-resources. This is a new strategy that we have called “Ambition 2030,” which is based on 5 “S”: Food Security, health of Soils, air, and water, Source of bioproducts, and energy Sovereignty, all with Serenity. To pilot this Ambition 2030, we created a direction for the living economy, based on the merger of our teams dedicated to agriculture, viticulture, forests, and the Bioeconomy.
What do you consider to be the weaknesses that need to be overcome today to ensure full development of the sector in your Region and at EU level?
The development of the Bioeconomy remains the development of an economy, with its markers and imperatives of performance and competitiveness. Certainly, we are facilitators, we set up structuring public policies, but we face two challenges.
The first is the stability, or instability, of the regulatory framework in the medium or long term, whether at the national or European level. As I said, the Bioeconomy is an economy, based in its achievements on heavy industrial investments, of several tens or even hundreds of millions of euros, which amortize over timeframes of 10 or even 20 years. Any unfavorable signal will lead investors to favor other, more secure projects.
The second is the social appropriation of the issues of the Bioeconomy. Today, every project leader is confronted with detractors, who are often maintained by national actors who, I say, have understood nothing of the stakes. Certainly, there are safeguards to ensure, there are deviations to avoid, but the Bioeconomy is above all alternative solutions to the use of fossil resources in our daily lives, to substitute practices that put us against the climate wall with solutions that will help us succeed in the ecological transition.
How important is the relationship with the national and European governments to ensure the implementation of adequate regional policies?
As I said, normative power is essential to encourage the development of the Bioeconomy. Setting up favorable and incentive frameworks is clearly what we expect from the State and the European Union. And I am delighted that in its France 2030 plan, France has focused on the development of biotechnologies, just as the European Union has also announced its trajectory for the development of biotechnologies and the revision of its Bioeconomy strategy by the end of 2025.
We need these reference frameworks to deploy regional policies coherently, with the same objectives and indicators, to support actors in the Region who are targeting a national or European market. Although the Bioeconomy is predominantly local, all the project leaders I have had the opportunity to meet at BIOKET 2024 in Reims told me that their ambition was the national or even European market. It is therefore essential that public policies are consistent with each other, to foster innovation and the development of the Bioeconomy in our territories, in our countries, and in our continent. And I believe that the regional level is undoubtedly the most relevant level to intersect all these ambitions.
What contribution has the France Relance national plan made to the growth of the bioeconomy in your region?
We have seen several companies win awards from the France 2030 initiatives, including the one dedicated to supporting the establishment of the first factory. These are substantial aids, which allow closing the financial setup of the first industrial factory of a brand-new process.
Similarly, I would like to acknowledge the importance of the support from the Joint Undertaking Circular Biobased Economy, successor to the BBI program run with the Biobased Industries Consortium. We have several startups creating their first global factories, like Afyren Neoxy, CIRCA, CARBIOS, or even Global Bioénergies. This is why I support that the Grand Est Region will join the BIC consortium. And we will be the second region, after Andalousia Region, to join as associate member.
And how do you evaluate the recent communication presented by the European Commission “Building the Future with Nature: Boosting Biotechnology and Biomanufactoring in the EU”? As far as you’re concerned, what are the bottlenecks still to be eliminated in Brussels?
As I mentioned, I think it’s an excellent signal from the European Commission, which was awaited by the Bioeconomy actors. Unfortunately, this happened in a delicate context related to the European elections, and therefore only commits the current Commission.
We eagerly await to see if the Commission will accept our candidacy to be part of the 100 innovation champion regions, which we have built around reducing dependence on fossil energies through the Bioeconomy. This would officially recognize our status as a European leader and open the way for interregional cooperation across Europe, with other regions that are also particularly committed to the development of the Bioeconomy, especially in the northern countries, Italy, Spain, or Germany.
We are living in a phase of profound uncertainty, in which we feel the absence of a strong Europe. How current is the Schuman declaration of 1950 from your point of view as a Frenchman and a European, also for the future of a prosperous and sustainable Europe?
You may not know this, but this phrase by Robert Schuman, founder of Europe, has marked my political commitment from the start. “Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan: it will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity.” It summarizes Schuman’s pragmatic and progressive approach to building European unity, starting with specific projects that could bring nations together and build a basis for cooperation and mutual trust. The analogy with the Bioeconomy is perfect. And for all we have said, I am convinced that it is through concrete achievements, solutions that our citizens will be able to see and measure, that we will succeed in building a new economy emancipated from fossil resources, deeply circular, and rooted in our territories.
I have Europe in my soul, and when I see what a Region like the Grand Est has been able to achieve thanks to European funds, particularly the ERDF and the EAFRD, I am deeply convinced that we need more Europe. Thus, the upcoming deadlines are of crucial importance, and I have already said this in France, but I take the opportunity of your question to say it on your media as well, I encourage everyone to mobilize to vote and to vote in the next European elections in June. Our voices are our means to shape the future of Europe, to make our values and aspirations heard. Let’s make this election a strong moment of democracy and commitment.
IL BIOECONOMISTA 